Need an explanation on \; and the end of commands

[SpongeB0B]

Hi everyone,

I would like to know exactly what does

\;

at the end of the example that I saw online

example 1

find /var/log -name *.log -exec ls -l {} \;

So If I get it well
Find will look in /var/log for files named *.log then will execute ls -l on each result ( {} = the output list ? )

I've try without \; at the end and I get Find: missing argument to -exec why ?

why we need to escape and and ; ?

Thanks

 

[SlowCoder]

It denotes the end of the exec argument.

The Find -Exec Command on Linux

This article provides a step-by-step guide utilizing the find -exec command on Linux. This helpful tutorial highlights the importance of the find command searches throughout the entire filesystem. Plus, we discussed the basic format of the find command, and the best feature of the find command...

linuxhint.com

 

[osprey]

The link provides useful info, but the semi-colon is escaped essentially so that the find command reads it and so it's not interpreted separately by the shell.